The present invention relates to combination weapons, and in particular, to firearms having a handgrip or butt portion adapted to dispense debilitating chemicals or repellants.
Peace officers are often equipped with a variety of devices for controlling law violators under emergency conditions. The officer's arsenal primarily includes a firearm, such as a standard revolver or pistol. Firearms, however, are highly lethal, and severe restrictions are placed on their handling and use. Therefore an officer often carries other less lethal devices, such as a billy club or a Chemical Mace dispenser, to be employed as the situation may warrant.
In many emergency or action situations, it is difficult at the outset to know whether a lethal or nonlethal weapon would be most effective. It is cumbersome and impractical to approach such situations with all possible weapons in hand. Nevertheless, circumstances in an action situation may change rapidly, calling for a different level or type of response in order to protect the officer and to avoid unnecessary harm to assailants and victims.
For example, an officer might appropriately enter a situation and approach a suspect person with a drawn firearm. In such situations, a suspect may not appear to be armed, making it highly undesirable for the officer to fire at the person for other than an overt attack, e.g., if the suspect merely fails to follow the officer's directions. Alternately, an apparently unarmed suspect may have approached close enough to the officer to wrestle the firearm from him. In either event it is highly desireable for the officer to have the option of rotating his weapon to a characteristic "safe" position, i.e., where the weapon is pointed upwardly, and discharging a debilitating substance at the suspect without losing the ability to respond with lethal force should a change in the situation so warrant.